Niño gordo

Modigliani painted this small panel in 1915, in a Paris emptied by the First World War. A couple of years earlier he had given up the sculpture he loved; the stone dust was ruining his weak lungs, and the war had cut off both patrons and materials. So he turned back to painting, and 1915 is the year he found what he called his grand manner. You can see it in this child's head, built from a few firm, simplified curves, the features pared right down, more carved than brushed, as if the sculptor were still working through the paint. It is a modest thing, a panel under half a metre tall, painted when almost no one was buying his work and the man himself had five years left.